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The Senate approved an emergency spending bill Thursday that will provide $50 million in grants to 12 Louisiana colleges affected by Hurricane Katrina. The legislation, which the House passed last week and now goes to President Bush for his signature, also repeals the “single holder” rule, which has mandated that a borrower who has all of his or her guaranteed loans with one lender can consolidate those loans only with that lender, rather than shopping around for the best rate.

The North Dakota Board of Higher Education voted 8-0 Thursday to authorize the state attorney general to sue the National Collegiate Athletic Association over a policy that restricts the University of North Dakota's participation in association championships because of the university's Fighting Sioux nickname, the Associated Press reported. State officials say they intend to argue that the policy, which targets Native American imagery an NCAA committee deems "hostile and abusive," was established outside the association's own standard procedures. The College of William and Mary meanwhile announced Thursday that it was appealing the NCAA's determination that its athletic logo violates the association's policies or is offensive to Native Americans.

Colleges are urged to take more care in how students are transported to athletic and other events, in light of tragic accidents in which students have been killed going to and from such events, in a report released Thursday by the American Council on Education, the National Collegiate Athletic Association and United Educators. The report reviews trends in accidents and offers recommendations both for land and air travel.

Janitors at the University of Miami elected overwhelmingly to unionize with the Service Employees International Union, according to the American Arbitration Association, which certified and made public the results of the workers' decision Wednesday. The janitors, who are employed by the national cleaning firm UNICCO, had held a nine-week strike to draw attention to their low wages.

BP has announced plans to spend $500 million over the next 10 years -- at a university to be named, either in Britain or the United States -- to support "radical research" in the biosciences that would relate to energy issues.

Uma G. Gupta, president of the State University of New York College of Technology at Alfred, is taking another position at SUNY and leaving the campus where she has clashed with faculty members, The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle reported. Gupta and faculty leaders had attempted to find common ground through the work of a group of faculty members from across the SUNY system, but their report -- critical of all sides at Alfred -- may not have been enough.